The company also reported approximate figures as if reporting under the old scheme

(Thank you Peter)

A surgical split between Windows8 Classic vs Windows8 Modern. Steve Ballmer ends an era, a new one has begun. Financial reporting breaking cleanly from the old model. Microsoft making its own PCs and phones with Nokia's acquisition.

Is Microsoft morphing into Apple in the consumer business, Google in the cloud and Oracle/IBM in the enterprise?

Whatever it is, it appears to be working. Let's hope Surface2 sells better. Excellent numbers for Q1, all things considered.

With Bay Trail around, which sells for less $$$ and has no stupid RT limitations - it won't. I wish it would, but let's be honest with ourselves. RT is dead 'cause Atom killed it a year ago. What we see now is the agony. All the OEMs escaped RT, now only MS is selling it. And with atrocious pricing on Surface 2 it has absolutely no chance of survival. After they take another billion dollar loss on it next year, hopefully they dispatch this decomposing corpse at last. The sooner they kill it - the better for them. They should stop throwing money down this useless money pit IMHO.

The company also reported approximate figures as if reporting under the old scheme

. Let's hope Surface2 sells better.

Surface 2 is a bad idea. Why sacrifice backwards compatibility with Windows programs when for the same price you could get a Bay Trail tablet that doesn't? It makes sense if Microsoft is intending to merge WP8 and RT in the near future but they're going to have a tough time competing with the Bay Trail parts this year. I'd love RT on my Lumia 920.

Im considering an investment in Microsoft. One of the few *product* companies around in personal computing. Cloud computing has turned out to be a joke. The return to personal data on personal computers makes a ton of sense.

I've been posting about 'clown' computing for five years. Its full of holes and of course stealing innovations described in documents stored in Google's Cloud - email can't be proved. There's no oversight. No Gov'mint. No reporting of anything. No Freedom of Information Act that applied to our do-no-evil pal -> Googie.

Microsoft has a good chance to rally around its enterprise (read home networks of the future) and build in security from the individual to the household to the neighborhood, to the town, region, state, nation, globe.

Its how life actually works. All hyperboles from Google aside. Globalization offers opportunities, localization offers stability. And sure, that'll anger Wall St, but *stability* is what is needed to achieve *sustainable* growth. Perhaps Microsoft is that cornerstone in the tech economy that can build around the history of railing *against* centralized IBM Mainframes and the concept that you are being turned into a number, a statistic, dehumanized. (as apple pointed out in the early 1980s)

The company also reported approximate figures as if reporting under the old scheme

. Let's hope Surface2 sells better.

Surface 2 is a bad idea. Why sacrifice backwards compatibility with Windows programs when for the same price you could get a Bay Trail tablet that doesn't? It makes sense if Microsoft is intending to merge WP8 and RT in the near future but they're going to have a tough time competing with the Bay Trail parts this year. I'd love RT on my Lumia 920.

Same reason people buy iPads--if you have a laptop, and just want a supplementary travel device, Surface 2 is the way to go.

The company also reported approximate figures as if reporting under the old scheme

(Thank you Peter)

A surgical split between Windows8 Classic vs Windows8 Modern. Steve Ballmer ends an era, a new one has begun. Financial reporting breaking cleanly from the old model. Microsoft making its own PCs and phones with Nokia's acquisition.

Is Microsoft morphing into Apple in the consumer business, Google in the cloud and Oracle/IBM in the enterprise?

Whatever it is, it appears to be working. Let's hope Surface2 sells better. Excellent numbers for Q1, all things considered.

That's totally besides the point. Next year it should be a Lumia tablet or bust. Write off the Surface 2 now, they're barely revised versions of failed (in terms of sales, let's not be silly) products. If they're still selling Surfaces next year, the new CEO has already failed.

What they need is reporting of their stores. Are they being lost in the shuffle of this reorg? What are they really going to do, why be so aggressive to acquire 1st party hardware and not do anything to sell them? What about that B&N stake, do they have a plan there? Do they have any compelling plan to upgrade their Walmart brand using the stores?

Their main competitors are not Apple. Apple and MS have almost no overlap due to their history. It's wishful thinking for both parties that Apple can challenge Office and MS can challenge iphone.

The real competition is Oracle, Google, Amazon and maybe Sony or Valve (depending on how gaming goes next year, it's a completely unpredictable cage match I think).

To succeed now they need stores and a better hardware team and probably content in some form - Google has youtube, Amazon has kindle books. Do they know what it takes to compete in consumer land?

The company also reported approximate figures as if reporting under the old scheme

. Let's hope Surface2 sells better.

Surface 2 is a bad idea. Why sacrifice backwards compatibility with Windows programs when for the same price you could get a Bay Trail tablet that doesn't? It makes sense if Microsoft is intending to merge WP8 and RT in the near future but they're going to have a tough time competing with the Bay Trail parts this year. I'd love RT on my Lumia 920.

Same reason people buy iPads--if you have a laptop, and just want a supplementary travel device, Surface 2 is the way to go.

Um, no actually in that case iPad is the way to go. If you want to do something that you can't do on an iPad, then you need Surface Pro.

With Bay Trail around, which sells for less $$$ and has no stupid RT limitations - it won't. I wish it would, but let's be honest with ourselves. RT is dead 'cause Atom killed it a year ago. What we see now is the agony. All the OEMs escaped RT, now only MS is selling it. And with atrocious pricing on Surface 2 it has absolutely no chance of survival. After they take another billion dollar loss on it next year, hopefully they dispatch this decomposing corpse at last. The sooner they kill it - the better for them. They should stop throwing money down this useless money pit IMHO.

Bay Trail isn't selling for less when you compare similarly-equipped devices. A TransformerBook T100 may sell for $349, but it doesn't have the 1080p screen or the magnesium-alloy case of the Surface 2. I don't know of any 1080p Bay Trail devices with premium cases that sell for less or even equal to the $449-$99 of the Surface 2 and the Lumia 2520.

On the other hand, there are plenty of people who will buy on price first and foremost, and for these people, the 1366x768, inexpensive-cased options from Asus and such are going to be a better option. And there's nothing wrong with that. But there are very real reasons that the TransformerBook and such are cheaper than the Surface 2 and the Lumia 2520, and it's screen, case materials, build quality, etc.

f you have a laptop, and just want a supplementary travel device, Surface 2 is the way to go

It is actually not the way to go, new iPad Air easily owns Surface 2 on all fronts except Office 2013 which is a niche thing on tablets anyway. It's faster, much lighter, thinner, screen is better, app library is orders of magnitude better. Surface 2 has no chance standing against iPad Air as a pure consumer consumption device given Surface 2's atrocious price. It will remain a small niche device for Office using tablet holdouts, but these are a minority, which spells another huge write off for MS next year.

Im considering an investment in Microsoft. One of the few *product* companies around in personal computing. Cloud computing has turned out to be a joke. The return to personal data on personal computers makes a ton of sense.

I've been posting about 'clown' computing for five years. Its full of holes and of course stealing innovations described in documents stored in Google's Cloud - email can't be proved. There's no oversight. No Gov'mint. No reporting of anything. No Freedom of Information Act that applied to our do-no-evil pal -> Googie.

Microsoft has a good chance to rally around its enterprise (read home networks of the future) and build in security from the individual to the household to the neighborhood, to the town, region, state, nation, globe.

Its how life actually works. All hyperboles from Google aside. Globalization offers opportunities, localization offers stability. And sure, that'll anger Wall St, but *stability* is what is needed to achieve *sustainable* growth. Perhaps Microsoft is that cornerstone in the tech economy that can build around the history of railing *against* centralized IBM Mainframes and the concept that you are being turned into a number, a statistic, dehumanized. (as apple pointed out in the early 1980s)

What is this rant about? Microsoft has a cloud effort, called Azure. It's the future. They're rumoured to rename Windows server to Azure Server. Skydrive is built into Windows 8. Xbox was the first cloud-oriented mass market consumer device, and it has more ads than a gmail page.

Microsoft is not on your side. No one really is, except maybe Red Hat? I'm at a loss for who really wants local computing to succeed and is larger than an IT dept.

Um, no actually in that case iPad is the way to go. If you want to do something that you can't do on an iPad, then you need Surface Pro.

I disagree. With Windows 8.1, the split-screen operation is a huge selling point over iOS. I love clicking on a link in Facebook or Mail and it automatically opens up on the right-half of the screen without me losing my newsfeed or the rest of the email I'm reading (I'm doing this on an x86 Duo 11, but the Metro experience should be the same on a Surface 2 running Windows RT 8.1). This is really, really awesome functionality in a tablet. (Also useful: watching Netflix or YouTube while idly skimming facebook at the same time). The rest of the points in the iPad versus Surface are largely subjective (whose native apps you like better, whose UI you like better, whose hardware you like better), but the split-screen operation the Surface 2 offers over the iPad is an undeniable objective benefit.

Bay Trail isn't selling for less when you compare similarly-equipped devices

But still cheapo Bay Trail tablets are approximately half the price of the Surface 2, have less size and weight, and also do not suffer from RT's lack of software at all. All these arguments are much more strong than some marketing gimmick like VaporMG for most consumers, it explains why OEMs dropped stillborn RT pretty quick.

Um, no actually in that case iPad is the way to go. If you want to do something that you can't do on an iPad, then you need Surface Pro.

To quote Microsoft's Frank Shaw:"• The Surface and Surface 2 are less expensive than the iPad 2 and iPad Air respectively, and yet offer more storage, both onboard and in the cloud.• … come with full versions of Office 2013, including Outlook, not non-standard, non-cross-platform, imitation apps that can’t share docs with the rest of the world.• … offer additional native productivity enhancing capabilities like kickstands, USB ports, SD card slots and multiple keyboard options.• … include interfaces for opening multiple windows, either side by side or layered to fit the way most people actually work."

I think these are very good points. Yes, the app store for iPads is bigger, but that is pretty much the only (albeit significant) advantage.

These advantages might not matter for the home user or "entertainment consumer", but when we are talking about the education market or the enterprise, these are important features.

I think the Pro is great, but I also think there is great value in the other models as well.

Bay Trail isn't selling for less when you compare similarly-equipped devices

But still cheapo Bay Trail tablets are approximately half the price of the Surface 2, have less size and weight, and also do not suffer from RT's lack of software at all. All these arguments are much more strong than some marketing gimmick like VaporMG for most consumers, it explains why OEMs dropped stillborn RT pretty quick.

If it's a tablet that you want, desktop apps are mostly useless, since they don't work well or not at all on a touch screen. Meanwhile, RT on ARM will give you better battery life.

I don't get why the first 8 inch Windows tablets aren't RT, because the desktop makes even less sense on 8 inch than on a 10 inch.

f you have a laptop, and just want a supplementary travel device, Surface 2 is the way to go

It is actually not the way to go, new iPad Air easily owns Surface 2 on all fronts except Office 2013 which is a niche thing on tablets anyway. It's faster, much lighter, thinner, screen is better, app library is orders of magnitude better. Surface 2 has no chance standing against iPad Air as a pure consumer consumption device given Surface 2's atrocious price. It will remain a small niche device for Office using tablet holdouts, but these are a minority, which spells another huge write off for MS next year.

Um, no actually in that case iPad is the way to go. If you want to do something that you can't do on an iPad, then you need Surface Pro.

Okay there, Apply Fanbois. I wasn't making a statement about which is best among tablet-like devices, but a statement about the legacy vs. non-legacy. You should really check out the thing someone is quoting when they reply, it tells you a lot about the context.

But as tecnicars said, there are actually many reasons why one would want a Surface over an iPad if they don't care about legacy compatibility. And bonus: Any apps they use on their Surface will also work on their regular computer.

I'll probably grab a Surface 2 for my parents for Christmas. They're really just general computer users, and having something more portable than their desktop that also has Office on it will be perfect for them.

As I've said before, I purchased a Surface Pro thinking I'd install Steam and other native Windows apps. After 8 months I still haven't - it's just general web browsing / note taking / movie watching during flights. So the RT would have been plenty for my purposes as well.

In my mind, the fact that so many people have been willing to jump to iPads / other tablets indicates that the ability to use legacy applications isn't critical. While the Surface Pro allows for installing native applications for those who really want / need them, maybe the standard use case is now one that doesn't require these applications.

It is actually not the way to go, new iPad Air easily owns Surface 2 on all fronts except Office 2013 which is a niche thing on tablets anyway. It's faster, much lighter, thinner, screen is better, app library is orders of magnitude better. Surface 2 has no chance standing against iPad Air as a pure consumer consumption device given Surface 2's atrocious price. It will remain a small niche device for Office using tablet holdouts, but these are a minority, which spells another huge write off for MS next year.

Funny how any advantage MS has over Apple is "a niche thing". It is actually a pretty big deal.

And "all fronts" is a bit over the top. The way I see it:iPad clearly wins with:- Size of app store- significantly lighter

Surface 2 wins with:- Office- Side by side apps- higher res front facing camera- designed with keyboard in mind- price

With Bay Trail around, which sells for less $$$ and has no stupid RT limitations - it won't. I wish it would, but let's be honest with ourselves. RT is dead 'cause Atom killed it a year ago. What we see now is the agony. All the OEMs escaped RT, now only MS is selling it. And with atrocious pricing on Surface 2 it has absolutely no chance of survival. After they take another billion dollar loss on it next year, hopefully they dispatch this decomposing corpse at last. The sooner they kill it - the better for them. They should stop throwing money down this useless money pit IMHO.

The hardware side may die but the ARM port of Windows will hang around for awhile longer. High volume consumer devices was half the reason for RT, the other half is ARM based microservers set for introduction next year. Expect a port of Windows 2012 to be released for 64 bit ARM chips next year (Windows 2012 RT?). MS may have better success in this area if they don't bury customers in licensing fees as these ARM servers are going to be very, very dense. 192 cores in 2U exists today which could easily double or quadruple next year.

I still think MS' largest failing in the consumer space, by far, was marketing. Sure, it's been said over and over again, but what the hell is RT? They never managed to explain that, and then they never managed to explain what a Surface Pro was to the general consumer market. The Pro 2 seems like a genuinely fine product, but people wonder why the hell a tablet is a thousand dollars because you can't seem to explain the damn thing.

Um, no actually in that case iPad is the way to go. If you want to do something that you can't do on an iPad, then you need Surface Pro.

I disagree. With Windows 8.1, the split-screen operation is a huge selling point over iOS. I love clicking on a link in Facebook or Mail and it automatically opens up on the right-half of the screen without me losing my newsfeed or the rest of the email I'm reading (I'm doing this on an x86 Duo 11, but the Metro experience should be the same on a Surface 2 running Windows RT 8.1). This is really, really awesome functionality in a tablet. (Also useful: watching Netflix or YouTube while idly skimming facebook at the same time). The rest of the points in the iPad versus Surface are largely subjective (whose native apps you like better, whose UI you like better, whose hardware you like better), but the split-screen operation the Surface 2 offers over the iPad is an undeniable objective benefit.

Just picked up my Surface 2 a couple hours ago.... and I am smitten with both the hardware and the software experience.

I also own a Nexus 7 and previously had an iPad, so am familiar with the competitive landscape, and I think Microsoft has created a really compelling tablet experience. The level of progress in just one year is impressive. If people don't give Windows 8.1 a chance on tablets, I think they will be missing out.

As far as RT goes, I actually don't want an Intel chipset on something this small and light, and certainly not on a 7-8 inch device. Windows RT is immune from Windows malware, will never slow down over time, and cannot be gummed up with poorly implemented drivers, browser toolbars, and the like. I think Windows on ARM will offer a much better experience over time for common tablet scenarios.

The company also reported approximate figures as if reporting under the old scheme

. Let's hope Surface2 sells better.

Surface 2 is a bad idea. Why sacrifice backwards compatibility with Windows programs when for the same price you could get a Bay Trail tablet that doesn't? It makes sense if Microsoft is intending to merge WP8 and RT in the near future but they're going to have a tough time competing with the Bay Trail parts this year. I'd love RT on my Lumia 920.

Got my Surface RT a few months ago and I love it. Would update to Surface 2 if I had heaps of disposable income.

Why go Tegra 4 instead of Bay Trail? Two main reasons.

(1) Value. Bay Trail tablets are about the same price as Surface for similar features (screen res, IO sockets, camera, keyboard) but if you want Office on a Bay Trail device, you're paying ~$200 upfront, or $99/year. There's your value proposition out the window if you care about Office. I accept that not everyone does want or need Office, but there are many people who think of Office as kind of a given.

(2) Security. You see BC as a feature, I see it as a vulnerability. I can't install dodgy plugins or add-ons to Office or IE; AFAIK RT (jailbroken devices notwithstanding) just won't run anything that's not downloaded from the Store. WinRT devices don't have the flexibility that my desktop has, and I admit that if I couldn't Remote Desktop into my desktop PCs I would feel that the experience was lacking. But I know a few fellow Surface users whose needs are a lot simpler, and who couldn't be happier with the features (although, to be fair, they would prefer the power of Tegra 4 over Tegra 3).

Horses for courses, and obviously Bay Trail has a lot going for it. But for me and a good part of the population Surface 2 offers the applicance-like security and consistency of an iPad with the full-featured productivity of a PC running a desktop-level web browser and Office with proper multitasking.

I still think MS' largest failing in the consumer space, by far, was marketing. Sure, it's been said over and over again, but what the hell is RT? They never managed to explain that, and then they never managed to explain what a Surface Pro was to the general consumer market. The Pro 2 seems like a genuinely fine product, but people wonder why the hell a tablet is a thousand dollars because you can't seem to explain the damn thing.

It's not hard to explain: Surface RT is a direct iPad competitor, with an app store, simple apps and all touch based.

Remarkably, people are still buying Xbox 360s, with 1.2 million sold between July and September.

Will it be remarkable when Sony releases the figures of their PS3 sales and it becomes know that people are still buying them? Nintendo with the Wii? Or how about Intel and their Sandy Bridge CPU's? Not everyone wants or needs the latest or greatest. And who isn't working on a budget or broke as hell these days. When companies slash prices, people are going to buy. With 360 getting priced at $99 or less, they may not fly of the shelfs but the demand will still be strong because it's cheap. Even through next year 360 consoles sales will reach million +. IMO, it's just a stupid assumption that it's anything close to remarkable. Sorry to rant and rave, the days frustration just had to come out at some point.

My own company is only now switching over to Windows 7 as XP reaches the last 6 months of it's support cycle - we're a fairly large insurance firm of over 2,500 employees, and while a fair share of companies switched long ago, many others are only doing so now. This is likely proving a significant source of revenue for the Enterprise segment. Based on XP's longevity, I wonder how many cycles it will take to replace 7?

I still think MS' largest failing in the consumer space, by far, was marketing. Sure, it's been said over and over again, but what the hell is RT? They never managed to explain that, and then they never managed to explain what a Surface Pro was to the general consumer market. The Pro 2 seems like a genuinely fine product, but people wonder why the hell a tablet is a thousand dollars because you can't seem to explain the damn thing.

It's not hard to explain: Surface RT is a direct iPad competitor, with an app store, simple apps and all touch based.

I still think MS' largest failing in the consumer space, by far, was marketing. Sure, it's been said over and over again, but what the hell is RT? They never managed to explain that, and then they never managed to explain what a Surface Pro was to the general consumer market. The Pro 2 seems like a genuinely fine product, but people wonder why the hell a tablet is a thousand dollars because you can't seem to explain the damn thing.

It's not hard to explain: Surface RT is a direct iPad competitor, with an app store, simple apps and all touch based.

The only nasty thing to explain is Office on RT. That's mostly because the Office team was even slower in acknowledging the iPad's success than the Windows team was.

I agree with this. Microsoft's mistake was building an inferior iPad rather than a 'Microsoft' tablet. Something that made it easy to run or recompile existing Windows applications for an ARM system, giving users the freedom and flexibility of the existing platform, and making the choice between an iPad and the Surface a no-brainer for many PC loyalists.

I don't really have a favourite in this, but really enjoy the fruits of the competition.

f you have a laptop, and just want a supplementary travel device, Surface 2 is the way to go

It is actually not the way to go, new iPad Air easily owns Surface 2 on all fronts except Office 2013 which is a niche thing on tablets anyway. It's faster, much lighter, thinner, screen is better, app library is orders of magnitude better. Surface 2 has no chance standing against iPad Air as a pure consumer consumption device given Surface 2's atrocious price. It will remain a small niche device for Office using tablet holdouts, but these are a minority, which spells another huge write off for MS next year.

The 32Gb Surface 2 is $529 in Australia and the 32Gb iPad Air is $699. It's a LOT cheaper and has a LOT more functionality. If you are buying something to compliment your desktop then the Surface 2 TKOs the iPad Air in the first round.

I don't think either one compliments a laptop overly, unless you want a pure consumption device. If you do, then I can see the appeal of the iPad Air (if money is no object), but neither is as good as a 7-8" device for complimenting a laptop, IMO.

I still think MS' largest failing in the consumer space, by far, was marketing. Sure, it's been said over and over again, but what the hell is RT? They never managed to explain that, and then they never managed to explain what a Surface Pro was to the general consumer market. The Pro 2 seems like a genuinely fine product, but people wonder why the hell a tablet is a thousand dollars because you can't seem to explain the damn thing.

It's not hard to explain: Surface RT is a direct iPad competitor, with an app store, simple apps and all touch based.

The only nasty thing to explain is Office on RT. That's mostly because the Office team was even slower in acknowledging the iPad's success than the Windows team was.

I agree with this. Microsoft's mistake was building an inferior iPad rather than a 'Microsoft' tablet. Something that made it easy to run or recompile existing Windows applications for an ARM system, giving users the freedom and flexibility of the existing platform, and making the choice between an iPad and the Surface a no-brainer for many PC loyalists.

I don't really have a favourite in this, but really enjoy the fruits of the competition.

With Bay Trail around, which sells for less $$$ and has no stupid RT limitations - it won't. I wish it would, but let's be honest with ourselves. RT is dead 'cause Atom killed it a year ago. What we see now is the agony. All the OEMs escaped RT, now only MS is selling it. And with atrocious pricing on Surface 2 it has absolutely no chance of survival. After they take another billion dollar loss on it next year, hopefully they dispatch this decomposing corpse at last. The sooner they kill it - the better for them. They should stop throwing money down this useless money pit IMHO.

[I work at MSFT, not on Surface, don't know ANYTHING about it so this is 100% suppostion]

Surface2 being on ARM and not Bay Trail isn't a mistake in execution or a failure to plan. It is a deliberate stroke. Surface 2 is the purest evocation of 'The New Windows.' The New Windows eschews legacy x86 apps on the desktop because they are not what consumers have demanded going forward. They want touch, they want those big friendly icons everybody hates, they *do not want* the pointer based abstractions to tiny UI elements. That Surface 2 is ARM speaks to the belief in the future of Windows as being WinRT, because it is. The less 'legacy desktop' on Surface 2 the better. If the Office team had M***o Office ready this year there wouldn't *be* a legacy desktop on the Surface 2, as it stands it's only there for Office.

I dig it because I still get Task Manager and I still get all that groovy deep-down stuff that's in Windows and not there in other competing platforms without weird hacks, but for now that's a weird niche being fulfilled because I'm following a platform in transition.

Selling a Bay Trail Surface would just encourage people to run their legacy x86 desktop apps on a device that isn't built for it and *shouldn't be* built for it. I believe in the Surface team's decision and think they're hitting all the right nails on all the right heads. In my mind the faster they kill legacy Windows the better. It will yield better perf, better security (reduced surface(hah) area), and a more compact installation. I can't wait.

If what you want is an Intel-based tablet you can turn into a laptop or a dockable workstation then what you want is the Surface Pro. That's why that SKU exists. There are other decent offerings from other vendors, but go run your desktop apps on a new 8" Dell Venue and *TRY* to come away as anything but miserable and then we'll talk. And when you use that Bay Trail device for only M***o/WinRT apps, then we can talk about whether it should've been ARM or Bay Trail based on performance, CPU, etc. And in those spaces ARM remains competitive with Intel, and likely will for at least the next few years.

With Bay Trail around, which sells for less $$$ and has no stupid RT limitations - it won't. I wish it would, but let's be honest with ourselves. RT is dead 'cause Atom killed it a year ago. What we see now is the agony. All the OEMs escaped RT, now only MS is selling it. And with atrocious pricing on Surface 2 it has absolutely no chance of survival. After they take another billion dollar loss on it next year, hopefully they dispatch this decomposing corpse at last. The sooner they kill it - the better for them. They should stop throwing money down this useless money pit IMHO.

[I work at MSFT, not on Surface, don't know ANYTHING about it so this is 100% suppostion]

Surface2 being on ARM and not Bay Trail isn't a mistake in execution or a failure to plan. It is a deliberate stroke. Surface 2 is the purest evocation of 'The New Windows.' The New Windows eschews legacy x86 apps on the desktop because they are not what consumers have demanded going forward. They want touch, they want those big friendly icons everybody hates, they *do not want* the pointer based abstractions to tiny UI elements. That Surface 2 is ARM speaks to the belief in the future of Windows as being WinRT, because it is. The less 'legacy desktop' on Surface 2 the better. If the Office team had M***o Office ready this year there wouldn't *be* a legacy desktop on the Surface 2, as it stands it's only there for Office.

We've all seen the sales numbers, and no, apparently people don't want your big "friendly" icons. The only RT devices coming out are from Microsoft itself, everyone else has dropped them, so I'm scratching my head at this supposed WinRT future. You point me toward a large consumer population "demanding" RT products, and I'll concede

i don't post often, but the screen quality comment above begs for some context.

the difference in contrast & optically bonded vs. air-filled displays is notable in just about all circumstances which involve external light sources. contrast, glare & observable resolution (http://www.trioptics.com/knowledgebase/mtf.php if you want to geek out) don't even come close to compare.

consumers, on average, preferred the surface 1 screen (1366 x 768) vs the "retina" ipad3, especially for media playback. haven't seen any direct comparisons, by microsoft or anybody else, of the surface 2 screen vs any tablet competition, but i imagine the results would be a landslide. people complaining about the "odd" 16x9 form factor must not view media on a regular basis--there's a 40% pixel difference between full screen HD content & "boxed" 4x3 used in apple's products.

don't trust me, trust your own eyes. apple or microsoft stores are actually set up to clearly showcase the advantages of surface screens: brightly lit, with tons of light sources.

We've all seen the sales numbers, and no, apparently people don't want your big "friendly" icons. The only RT devices coming out are from Microsoft itself, everyone else has dropped them, so I'm scratching my head at this supposed WinRT future. You point me toward a large consumer population "demanding" RT products, and I'll concede

I've seen the sales numbers too. You are misinterpreting what I said. Consumers want touch devices that are simple to use. This is why tablets as a product category are successful. The failure of Surface1 to sell was based on many factors, but overall product direction was *not* one of them.

The company also reported approximate figures as if reporting under the old scheme

. Let's hope Surface2 sells better.

Surface 2 is a bad idea. Why sacrifice backwards compatibility with Windows programs when for the same price you could get a Bay Trail tablet that doesn't? It makes sense if Microsoft is intending to merge WP8 and RT in the near future but they're going to have a tough time competing with the Bay Trail parts this year. I'd love RT on my Lumia 920.

Same reason people buy iPads--if you have a laptop, and just want a supplementary travel device, Surface 2 is the way to go.

Um, no actually in that case iPad is the way to go. If you want to do something that you can't do on an iPad, then you need Surface Pro.

We've all seen the sales numbers, and no, apparently people don't want your big "friendly" icons. The only RT devices coming out are from Microsoft itself, everyone else has dropped them, so I'm scratching my head at this supposed WinRT future. You point me toward a large consumer population "demanding" RT products, and I'll concede

I've seen the sales numbers too. You are misinterpreting what I said. Consumers want touch devices that are simple to use. This is why tablets as a product category are successful. The failure of Surface1 to sell was based on many factors, but overall product direction was *not* one of them.

NOBODY wants desktop apps on a 7-10" tablet. Nobody.

So, if I have this right, you want MS to kill all iterations of x86 Windows along with the entire desktop environment going forward? Or do you simply want them to eliminate the legacy environment from their touch devices?